Furey, Leo

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Furey, Leo

PERSONAL:

Education: St. Francis Xavier University, B.A. (with honors); Memorial University, degree in education and a graduate degree; University of Ottowa, graduate degree.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Canada. Agent—Anne McDermid & Associates Ltd., 83 Willcocks St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 1C9, Canada.

CAREER:

Writer. Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, Canada, executive director.

WRITINGS:

The Long Run: A Novel, Key Porter Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2004, Trumpeter (Boston, MA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Canadian writer Leo Furey serves as the executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation. He is also the author of a variety of short fiction and poetry, and his debut book, The Long Run: A Novel, was released in 2004. The novel tells the story of Aiden Carmicheal, a young boy at the Mount Kildare Orphanage and a member of a secret club with several of his friends there, led by an American boy called Blackie, who was abandoned at the orphanage by his mother and is the only black child there. Rules at the orphanage are strict, and punishments for the slightest infraction are harsh. The boys distract themselves by training in secret for a marathon held each summer, going out to run even in the coldest weather. Furey mines his own childhood raised in an orphanage, accurately reproducing the emotions of his youth, as well as the smart dialogue. Alide Kohlhaas, in a review for the Lancette Journal of the Arts, remarked: "Furey writes like a seasoned author, who knows how to shape scenes, create vivid images, and tell an absorbing tale cleanly and truthfully." Kohlhaas concluded that Furey's effort "will put the reader through quite an emotional grinder." Booklist reviewer Joanne Wilkinson commented that the book "encapsulates the life-affirming resilience of youth." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found the book to be "a moving and uplifting story."